Speech #710006451

I shall conclude as quickly as I can. Back in 1910 our Census Bureau made a very careful analysis of the colonial stock of the United States and their descendants. That study was made long before immigration restrictions became an acute question. When the nationalorigins plan was adopted it was immediately recognized that part of the calculation could be absolutely exact and part of it involved a research. There were four groups into which all our citizens fell. as follows: First. the foreign born reported in the 1920 census. that was reported in terms of postwar geography and was absolutely accurate. as far as a census could be. Then came the next group. the children of foreignborn. or persons having one or more parents born abroad. That group necessarily was reported in terms of prewar geography and involved some calculation to apportion it between the postwar countries. Then came the third group. the descendants of immigrants since the colonial period. descendants in the third degreegrandchildren or later. That had to be treated in the same way. because the immigration statistics were. of course. in prewar geographical terms. Onefourth. and only onefourth. came of colonial stock. and there the same kind of study that had been made as of 1910 had to be applied in order to ascertain the national origins. It is claimed by some of the critics that the nationalorigins plan is inaccurate.